Nice first Article Kalos!

Any clue how if the required amount of processing power for things like this is significant? And if this is something that is can actually take advantage of the whole multicore hype?

I was wondering that because I think its not something that you can turn off. It seems to me that its to much part of the gameplay/engine itself (not as much as in Company of Heroes in which craters can actually provide cover). Having said that its still eyecandy for the most part

Nice first Article Kalos!

Any clue how if the required amount of processing power for things like this is significant? And if this is something that is can actually take advantage of the whole multicore hype?

I was wondering that because I think its not something that you can turn off. It seems to me that its to much part of the gameplay/engine itself (not as much as in Company of Heroes in which craters can actually provide cover). Having said that its still eyecandy for the most part

[QUOTE=Freelancer;4391]Nice first Article Kalos!

Any clue how if the required amount of processing power for things like this is significant? And if this is something that is can actually take advantage of the whole multicore hype?

I was wondering that because I think its not something that you can turn off. It seems to me that its to much part of the gameplay/engine itself (not as much as in Company of Heroes in which craters can actually provide cover). Having said that its still eyecandy for the most part

Actually it’s my second article ;p But technically you are right, it’s the first proper write up that should be called an article. I’ve stacked the Havok article above and my earlier system specs guidelines in the Kalos’ Chronicles.

I think this will require more base processing power than the simple requirements of Warcraft 3 and WoW for this very reason, the Havok physics. not just the normal curvative that as time goes on games progressively get more demanding, this should put a real impact on system demands.

I’m fairly certain that Blizzard won’t be going into heavy multithreading, not just because it’s a pain to train up coders and write upon it, but they started making the game in 2003 roughly, while we didn’t really see mainstream dual cores for the bulk of consumers until 2006. They had been brought out in 2005, early models like the Pentium D and the Athlon X2 series, but they were quite high end and not priced for any normal usage. Now we’re in an age where dual core processors can be picked up for $50 (back in 2005 on Day One of the consumer multicore PC, expect prices around $300 at the bottom level duals!), and quad cores are going to be pushed into range of average joes if Intel has anything to do with it. I think Diablo III or whatever project follows that may take more advantage, but I seriously doubt Starcraft II will. It’s not that Blizzard is being lazy or sloppy, but multicore design really needs to be done from the start of the development cycle, it can’t be rammed into operation on an engine built with single core processing in mind without being fairly ineffective anyway.

But a dual core is still advantageous for the game, as the computer will automatically shunt most of the background OS operations onto the second core, leaving the other free to concentrate alone on the most important thing, the game itself, without having to run the dozens of Microsoft services also, so a dual core will see benefit over the older single cores for this alone. I refer to it as ‘Dumb multitasking’. Nice little passive boost, sometimes quite effective.

As a by-the-by, I arrived at the 2.4 Ghz Pentium 4 frequency from looking at other Havok based games, and then dialling it up a bit for the fact it’ll be a 2009 computer game. Starcraft II’s minimum processing requirements may exceed this demand, it may come under the level I delivered. I have a feeling it can’t be far off, else there will be dozens of unhappy gamers who are used to Blizzard’s low system specs. They simply have to allow old single core designs like some of the higher end Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 processor families to run the game, basically the machines of 2005 and onwards most likely will be fine.

I don’t think it’ll be something the game will be able to operate without either, but I don’t expect to see Havok used as extensively as in Company of Heroes, my all-popular example of Havok in action. Once again, not knocking Blizzard’s effects or implimentation, I just don’t witness the same level of terrain interaction (this could be subject to change but unlikely, the last few demos have shown fairly consistant physics effect). This could be intentional, or simply an artistic style choice, but it may reduce the overhead demand compared with Havok-heavy games.

I’m still waiting for a RTS where each little soldier dies using ragdoll. THAT will be something.

I’m still waiting for a RTS where each little soldier dies using ragdoll. THAT will be something.

I’m still waiting for a RTS where each little soldier dies using ragdoll. THAT will be something.

I’m still waiting for a RTS where each little soldier dies using ragdoll. THAT will be something.

I would love to see something like that combined with non-despawning of the remains of whatever you break. Company of Heroes does this partially, but it would be nice to see it beeing brought to the next level

The other part of the equation, something that quite a few gamedevelopers seem to forget is to test these new feature by asking the “Is this fun” question.

I would love to see something like that combined with non-despawning of the remains of whatever you break. Company of Heroes does this partially, but it would be nice to see it beeing brought to the next level

The other part of the equation, something that quite a few gamedevelopers seem to forget is to test these new feature by asking the “Is this fun” question.

I would love to see something like that combined with non-despawning of the remains of whatever you break. Company of Heroes does this partially, but it would be nice to see it beeing brought to the next level

The other part of the equation, something that quite a few gamedevelopers seem to forget is to test these new feature by asking the “Is this fun” question.